


Jenga

by OnlyStraightForJongup



Category: NU'EST
Genre: Canon Universe, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-03-30 19:51:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19034485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlyStraightForJongup/pseuds/OnlyStraightForJongup
Summary: When a long-standing game takes an unexpected turn, Jonghyun deals with feelings he wasn't prepared for.





	1. Building Blocks

**Author's Note:**

> title from Heize's Jenga!

It was practically tradition at this point. Jonghyun giggled when he spotted Dongho flat on his back, positioned on the floor.  He had a cap covering his eyes and stubble shadowing his mouth, and Jonghyun grinned because it had been a while since this happened.

He snapped a few photos. By now, Jonghyun had perfected the art of subtlety in regards to moving around a sleeping Dongho.  He got a photo of Dongho’s wide open mouth, the drool and stubble on his cheek.

Another with the camera focused on his nostrils.

Finally, a third of him all laid out, because his legs were stretched out straight and his arms were at his sides, and if it wasn’t for his chest rising and falling, he kinda looked dead. Jonghyun scrolled through the couple and giggled.

He had to stack something on his chest, if not to wake him up then just for a photo.

But they were in a practice room, and it was a practice room they used sometimes when filming stuff, so it was neat and empty and unless Jonghyun wanted to grab things from somewhere else, he didn’t have much to do.

Well, he did have a water bottle, but that was boring. It was what he normally did. Something different would be better.

He’d have to settle. Unless— Jonghyun pursed his lips. Maybe he had an idea.

He crouched down and slid closer. Dongho was out like a light; he wasn’t even snoring. Pressing his lips together to refrain from giving himself away, Jonghyun bent over Dongho so he could pose with him.

Jonghyun tossed up a peace sign, but it still wasn’t exactly what he wanted.  He paused, debating his next move. Dongho wasn’t in an easy position to work with, but if Jonghyun twisted one way and laid over Dongho, he could take something better.

He hovered over Dongho now, his phone still in one hand. Carefully, slowly, even though this would absolutely wake Dongho no matter how he went about it, he lowered himself down so most of his weight was on Dongho. Warmth leaked into his skin, enough that it would set him off sweating if he stayed too long.

But this was only for a picture or two.

Jonghyun posed with his head on Dongho’s chest, and Dongho’s open mouth and stubble took up half the frame. He took another, then a third, before Dongho shifted and groaned. Jonghyun froze, red-handed.

Dongho reached up, no doubt to figure out whatever Jonghyun had stacked on him. Instead, his hands found Jonghyun’s sides, then his back, and his heart jumped into his throat. His face burned. Jonghyun struggled to breathe under the barely present weight of Dongho’s palms.

Dongho patted him a few times, like he could figure out what was going on through touch. Then he shook his head enough for the cap to fall off and blinked open bleary eyes.

His hair was a mess, and Dongho really, really needed to shave, and Jonghyun hadn’t been this close to his face for a while now. He looked good. Healthy. Jonghyun couldn’t take his eyes off him.

“Jonghyun?” Dongho’s voice was hoarse and barely there. Maybe Jonghyun should’ve let him sleep. He needed it.

Words wouldn’t come, not even though Dongho was waiting for him to say something. Finally, Dongho groaned and went to throw him off.

“Wait!” Jonghyun yelped. He grabbed onto Dongho, his phone slipping from his grasp and smacking against the floor.

“Were you taking photos?” Dongho’s hand rested on his back, stabilizing him so he wouldn't slip.

“No!” Jonghyun wasn’t sure what made him deny it. His face hadn’t yet cooled, had only grown hotter, and he was glad that Dongho was still groggy, that he’d kept his eyes mainly closed.

“You’re still creepy.” Dongho had said that ever since Jonghyun had told their fans he had an entire album of Dongho sleeping, but they both knew it was just a game. There were certainly bad photos of Jonghyun on Dongho’s phone, and really, they all had weird photos of everyone. This wasn’t any different. Dongho just looked cute, and his reactions were funny.

“What?” Jonghyun asked, as innocently as he could. “No idea what you’re talking about. I was just trying to nap with you.” 

Dongho opened one eye and squinted. His face was swollen from sleep. He opened the other and started to smile, and Jonghyun tried to scramble off, already seeing his future.

It was too late. Dongho dumped him off to the side, and Jonghyun groaned as his elbow struck the floor.

“Ow,” he said, more for appearances than anything. He rubbed his arm, even though the pain had already faded.

Dongho had already closed his eyes, and Jonghyun should let him rest now. He’d had his fun, and he had stuff to work on. It had been close to twenty minutes, and here he was, still not getting work done and instead watching Dongho sleep.

Maybe he was creepy.

The floor was cold and hard against him, even though it had the normal slight bounce of a dance room. Dongho had fallen back asleep already, his chest moving with long, slow breaths. He’d moved so one of his arms was across his torso.

Jonghyun hadn’t slept that well either. They were all exhausted, only just finished with promotions, and the coming couple weeks were a much needed break. This transition was always difficult; escalating schedules were normal, but the sudden drop added a glazed exhaustion to him before he could finally relax and improve.

The only way to get past it was to keep some sort of schedule, which wasn’t hard with photo shoots and filming and everything that went on between albums, but maybe his lyrics could wait a bit.

Jonghyun scooched closer, this time to curl up into Dongho’s side. The floor was cool and Dongho was hot, and the combination didn’t work as well as it should’ve, but this was good.

He reached up and lowered Dongho’s cap back over his eyes. It would make him sleep better. Dongho’s heart was still calm and steady against Jonghyun’s ear, while his own raced. It quickened even further when Dongho shifted and wrapped his arm half around Jonghyun.

Somehow, even though his heartbeat hadn't slowed, the tension drained out of him. He could easily fall asleep like this.

Dongho was so soft, and his hand was gentle, and really, why didn’t Jonghyun do this more often? It was so nice.

Dongho’s stubble was dark, but he’d wiped the drool off. His mouth hung slightly open again. Jonghyun hadn’t taken the time to just look at him in so long, and something about this sent tingles running through him. It was almost exhilarating, no matter how dumb that sounded. Jonghyun balanced his chin on Dongho's chest and smiled up at him.

Jonghyun only ever watched Dongho to mess with him. He didn’t do it because of how good Dongho looked or how peaceful or how nice the weight of his hand was as it pressed into Jonghyun's back. Dongho shifted and the arm around Jonghyun tightened and would've pulled him closer if it was possible.

Jonghyun was somehow both relaxed and hyperaware, unwilling to get up. Closing his eyes didn't help. 

Dongho had called him creepy before, and he'd laughed it off, but this was creepy. This was too much. 

Jonghyun reached out and poked Dongho’s cheek. Once, twice, a third time before he flinched and the cap fell off again.

“Jonghyun,” Dongho growled without opening his eyes. Jonghyun laughed and escaped from his arms and onto his feet.

“See you soon,” he said. It was cold without Dongho’s touch. The room spun around him, but he powered through it.

As final as a period, the door clicked shut behind him. There were still thoughts of Dongho lingering in his mind.

It would take Jonghyun hours to shake them.

 

\--

 

Jonghyun couldn’t say he didn’t enjoy empty apartments.  After so many years of not having his own space, it was beyond nice to return home to empty rooms and heightened freedom.

Until it wasn’t nice, at least. But he’d predicted that, and that was why he lived with Minki. They meshed well together. Jonghyun wasn’t afraid to tell Minki to fuck off, and Minki was the best at dragging him out of his own world.

It worked well. Too well. Minki was in Thailand, filming for a drama, and the apartment was empty, and Jonghyun didn’t like it. He'd decided to visit one of the others.

A fifteen-minute ride later, and he leaned against the elevator railing, messing with his phone. Dongho’s apartment was technically the closest, but that was only because Minhyun’s and Aaron’s were on higher floors. 

Minki had sent Jonghyun an artsy photo of the skyline from his hotel that morning. He’d sent back a few happy stickers and gotten a couple more pictures in return.

It was good Minki was enjoying himself. Jonghyun hoped filming was going well.

Down a long hallway, bear left, and Jonghyun punched in the code to Dongho's apartment. He shut the door behind him. Dongho had a pile of shoes on his rack, but none of his lights were on. Maybe he was still at the studio.

Jonghyun flicked one of the switches. His socks muffled his footsteps, but if Dongho were here, he’d have music playing. Jonghyun skipped checking the rest of the apartment and instead opened the fridge. There were a bunch of sodas—and even a couple cans of beer and a bottle of soju, probably for Bumzu or whatever other friends came over.

Jonghyun popped the tab on a soda and plopped down on Dongho’s couch. He’d chill there until Dongho got back.

Normally Jonghyun would text, but well, no point in letting Dongho know he was already in his apartment.  They didn’t have any pressing deadlines or anything, so it wasn’t like Dongho would stay at the studio all night. Even he got burned out sometimes.

He’d found a weird phone game the other day. It definitely wasn’t meant to be played at the speed he was progressing but whatever, he was having fun. He’d been collecting more and more gold in it, but so far his luck with anything that required chance had gone poorly.

As shown by the fact that he’d just rolled to send his traveling character into a winter storm and lost his other rolls. Jonghyun locked his phone. So much for that. He curled up further into the couch and closed his eyes. Hopefully Dongho would get back soon.

Jonghyun was nodding off when the door opened. Confusion passed through Dongho’s face but didn’t settle there.

He tossed his bag to the side and walked past Jonghyun without acknowledging him. Jonghyun sat up. The soda can between his thighs tipped, but he caught it before it could spill.

He passed the couch to mess with the speaker against the wall. A second later he’d connected his phone to it, and soft music played through the apartment.

Dongho looked tired but he had a happy glow about him. “Good day?” Jonghyun asked.

“Bumzu and I went out.” He joined Jonghyun on the couch. “We decided to celebrate.”

“Cool.” Jonghyun didn’t know what they were celebrating exactly, but he was glad they’d had a good time. “Was the food good?”

That was always a safe topic with Dongho, and sure enough, he practically lit up. Jonghyun’s own tiredness melted away as he listened to Dongho describe several dishes they’d had there.

“We should go there sometime,” Dongho said. “There was a really nice waterfall outside. You’d like it.”

“Yeah, anytime you want.” Jonghyun was certain literally no one could turn down Dongho when he wanted to take them for food.

Plus, it was always nice to ride somewhere with Dongho. Relaxing, maybe. Reenergizing.

“So why are you here?” Dongho asked. “You didn’t say you were coming.”

“Just felt like it,” Jonghyun said. “It’s weird without Minki home.”

Dongho leaned over his side table, towards a bunch of succulents. A few of them were absurdly large and messier than what Jonghyun would've wanted in an apartment, but Dongho had had them for years. He'd never just get rid of any of them.

Jonghyun crawled over to look over his shoulder. "Are there more?" he asked. A couple were only single leaves in a small amount of dirt.

“I’m trying to figure out names for the new ones,” Dongho said.

“Be careful or you’ll forget them all again.”

“That was only one time.” Dongho frowned. “And Minhyun switched them around.”

To this day, Minhyun insisted he’d just been cleaning and if he switched the plants around, it was unintentional, but Dongho steadfastly blamed him for any name errors.

“Don’t you just make up new names every time someone asks?” Jonghyun asked.

“That still counts.”

Jonghyun laughed. He hadn’t expected him to admit it. “What if the plants remember their names?”

“They should remind me if it bothers them then.”

Jonghyun leaned over the plants on the table. Dongho scooched to the side so he'd have some more room. “Which ones are new?”

“These two.” They both only had a single leaf-like appendage sticking out from the dirt. Both were about as long as Dongho’s thumb was wide. There was a spray bottle next to them. “I took them from the studio.” They had a much larger succulent living there, and it had similar leaves.

“Won’t they die?” Jonghyun asked.

“No, that’s how I got most of these.”

Jonghyun hadn’t realized that. “Huh, so these are technically all stolen?”

“What? No, they’re mine.”

“I always wondered how you got so many.” He’d been building the collection for years. “You just took leaves off of other people’s?”

“It’s not like they’d miss them. And now they’re growing in my house so they’re mine.”

Jonghyun laughed. “That’s definitely not how that works.”

“Why not?”

It wasn’t worth debating it. Jonghyun shook his head, suppressing a smile. He was glad he came here. Dongho was fun and nice and so much better than being bored at home.

They’d both leaned over the table to survey the succulents, and only now Jonghyun realized he’d pressed against Dongho to do it. Their hands were almost brushing. Jonghyun closed the gap by moving his pinky finger.

It was more comfortable like that, and the fluttering feeling from the other day built up in his chest.

Dongho set his entire hand gently on top of Jonghyun's, and he flinched. Dongho's palm was warm, and his callouses from weight lifting pressed against Jonghyun's knuckles.

Jonghyun twitched his arm like he wanted to pull back. Dongho let him go, and Jonghyun laughed awkwardly.

What was that?

Dongho didn’t comment on it, still looking at the succulents, but his ears were red.

What was _that?_

 

\--

 

Jonghyun was sitting on his hands, watching Minki unpack from his bed. They'd been sharing stories, not that there was too much to tell after only a couple days. There had been a couple funny moments though. 

"Dongho told me--"

Minki snorted. Jonghyun blinked.

"What?"

Minki had bags under his eyes, and Jonghyun should maybe-probably help him so he could get some decent sleep. They had a schedule early tomorrow.

“When I said you could catch me up, I meant with things in general.”

“That's what I'm doing.”

“That’s your fourth story about Dongho.” Minki balled up a dirty shirt and tossed it into his laundry basket. “Trust me, I don’t need to hear a play-by-play of everything he does.”

“Well—” Jonghyun hadn’t realized they were all about Dongho. He’d just tried to pull a mix of the important stuff and the funny moments out of the past couple days, and they all just happened to involve Dongho. Jonghyun told Minki that.

“How many nights did you spend there?” Minki asked. “Did you live with him while I was gone?”

“It was quiet here. And I didn’t stay the night, just stopped by once or twice.” Jonghyun’s face burned from the accusations. He guessed he maybe stayed the night once there, but they hadn’t slept, and he’d come back here in the morning.

Minki paused, and Jonghyun tried to will his flustered reaction away. There was no reason for him to react like that. He and Dongho had been friends for about a decade and so had Minki and so had all of them.

There was nothing weird about visiting each other.

There _was_ something weird about his reaction to this, and Minki had always been perceptive.

“Wait, so the one time I’m gone you finally do something other than play games?” Minki pouted at him. “You ignored me all last week.”

“It wasn’t _ignoring_ you. I just was in the middle of stuff.” He’d gotten a new game and wanted to get some time out of it before their lives exploded again. “I asked if you wanted to play with me.”

“You said the point was to make a dictatorship. I’m not getting involved in your power trips.”

“My power trips? The game's about building a society. I just thought the dictator-thing would appeal to you.”

“There was an entire militia attacking your palace?”

“I never said I was good at it.”

Minki laughed and faced his suitcase again, pulling more clothes out. Jonghyun rolled off his bed. 

“I can help. And tell me about Thailand! You’ve barely said anything, and it’s a lot more interesting than my games.”

"I'm done," Minki said. He tapped the empty suitcase. “It was good. Hot and rainy, but filming was fun. I think they liked me.”

“Of course they liked you.” Everyone always adored Minki. It was impossible to do anything else. Plus, he was actually a decent actor, so that helped too.

“I missed you,” Minki said. “You should come with me next time.”

“I don’t go on trips."

“Except when someone forces you, and then you have a good time and always say you want to go on more but don’t until you’re forced again.” Minki raised an eyebrow at him.

Jonghyun blinked. Minki had come a little hard at him for that one. “Staying at home is nice though,” he said. “Do I even count as a homebody since we’re hardly home anyway?”

“You call yourself that one. And you just said you were lonely enough to go bother Dongho every day.”

“I do that even when you are home.”

“That doesn’t make it better.” Minki lifted his empty suitcase off the rack and put it away. Jonghyun hopped onto his bed again. His eyes burned. It was nearly two.

“I missed you too,” he said. "Don't know why now..."

“I couldn’t tell,” Minki said. Jonghyun had been in his room ever since he first got home. “Seems like you’d rather live with Dongho.”

“I'm happy with you,” Jonghyun said, too seriously for a response to a joke. They’d all lived together, obviously, but Jonghyun had known he should stick with Minki when they started talking about moving out. 

Aaron liked to have his friends over a lot, and they generally spoke in English. It was one thing when it was all five of them, but it would be awkward for them both if there were situations where only Jonghyun got excluded. He didn’t want to feel trapped in his own room.

Minhyun was on an entirely different level of cleanliness than Jonghyun, and he’d rather go and crash Minhyun's house sometimes than live with him now.

So Minki was the obvious choice. Jonghyun hadn’t ever talked to Dongho about it. They’d just both known because they were friends for so long and that was how things worked. You weren’t supposed to think super hard about ten-year friendships, that was what made them nice.

Minki was watching him oddly. “Did something happen between you two?”

“We’re fine,” Jonghyun said. His heart made itself noticeable.

_(Dongho, in all his tired glory, their faces close, his heartbeat against Jonghyun’s racing one—)_

“What did you do?” Minki asked, conversationally, like he wasn’t surprised about any of it even though Jonghyun couldn't even remember the last time he and Dongho fought about something important.

Jonghyun bristled. “What makes you think I did anything?”

_(His body on Dongho’s, and Dongho's arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer.)_

“You talking about Dongho. You being weird about him.” Minki gestured as though to say ‘so there!’ "What happened?"

Jonghyun stayed silent. What could he say? Dongho had been stuck in his thoughts for days, but Jonghyun couldn't explain why. 

“Well, work it out. We’ll see him in—” Minki glanced at the clock—”four hours.” Jonghyun stared at the blinking numbers. Minki might not understand what happened, but he was right that Jonghyun needed to figure it out.

He bade Minki goodnight and left. Alone in his room, the four hours began to tick away. Jonghyun stared at the ceiling.

He had touched Dongho’s cheeks before and his nose and his forehead. He’d even jabbed him in the eye before -- by accident, of course.

Other than brief moments when he'd fed him, Jonghyun had never touched Dongho’s lips, but he wanted to.

_(He was screwed--)_

That wasn't a normal thought to have about one of his oldest friends, one of his bandmates. One of the people who knew him the best of anyone in the entire world and who he was always grateful for.

The racing heart, the want to touch Dongho and linger in his embraces. The way Jonghyun wanted to spend extra time with him. These weren't foreign to him, but this was Dongho he was thinking about.

Jonghyun was screwed.


	2. Round One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m saying it doesn’t have to be complicated. You want to, and I do too, and that’s all we need, right?”

Jonghyun was perfectly professional. Cameras flashed and filming began and ended, and they played games together as normal. The chance someone working with them noticing anything strange was nonexistent. 

As always, the chance of the others not noticing was also nonexistent. 

Minki had been pushing him to explain what was wrong for the past few days, and if he wasn’t careful, Aaron would try and go all ‘older brother’ on him. If Minhyun had the chance, he’d do a series of obvious things, all with the goal of a heart-to-heart but so predictable, it would only work if Jonghyun played along.

They weren't the ones that bothered Jonghyun. 

He did his best to avoid Dongho's concerned looks. Dongho had this whole way about him where he’d look so _sad_ when another member was upset, and it was basically impossible to not talk to him then.

Jonghyun was two days into this whole thing when he first questioned why the hell he’d decided to handle this by isolating himself and worrying his friends. 

There had to be a better way.

On the third day, before he’d figured out what that meant, Dongho asked him if he wanted to come by the studio. They weren't in the process of recording anything. 

Of course, Jonghyun couldn’t say no. So here he was, in the chair beside Dongho, one hand on his headphones, the other messing with a loose thread near his wrist. 

“Here.” Dongho clicked a couple buttons, pulling up another sound file. “Listen to this.” 

It was a synth, similar to ones they’d used before. Jonghyun made a small sound of acknowledgment. 

“Now this.” Dongho played a different one—this time a beat he’d made.

“Okay,” Jonghyun said.

“And…” He pulled up a final window. “This.” 

It was both of them together this time. 

“That sounds cool,” Jonghyun said. Normally he’d have more to say, but he’d been quiet all night. Dongho hadn’t seemed to notice too much. He could talk about music all night, no matter how constructive Jonghyun's additions were. 

Sometimes Dongho's love for music showed so strongly, Jonghyun's own love for it seemed pale in comparison.

But tonight that was good and fine and better than Dongho being disheartened by his lack of reciprocation. At least, it was good until Jonghyun noticed how nice it was to watch Dongho talk about something that excited him.

He kept grinning and widening his eyes and blatantly turning to watch Jonghyun’s face whenever he played something he thought was good. 

It was funny how much Dongho's eyes could sparkle even in a room where most of the light came from the computer screen. It hit him that he was maybe staring when he turned back to the computer, and the light burned his ill-adjusted eyes.

There were a lot of reasons Jonghyun shouldn't enjoy this so much.

But Dongho kept smiling, and Jonghyun kept telling him it sounded good. Dongho wasn’t looking for any type of real critique here; if he was, it would've been Bumzu sitting with him.

He played the combination again. “I want this to be a title track,” he said, and it was amazing how Dongho saw potential in so little. Jonghyun couldn’t do that. 

Dongho pulled his headphones off, and a beat later, Jonghyun did the same, letting them hang around his neck.

“How’s writing going?” Dongho asked.

“I haven’t been doing much.” Unlike Dongho, Jonghyun wrote snippets of lyrics without already having music to put them to. One of Jonghyun’s favorite parts of the process was taking his lyrics and working with Dongho and Bumzu to adjust a word here and there and fit them into a song. 

There was always a click, whenever something fit perfectly. It made the lyrics seem much more real. 

“Have you been okay?” Dongho had this way of giving a person his full attention, and now Jonghyun struggled to look at him.

He should’ve seen that coming. Jonghyun always wrote lyrics.

There wasn't a good answer, unless he lied, and Jonghyun didn’t lie about important things to his members. That was the kind of thing that tore friends apart. He remained silent.

“We should go for food,” Dongho decided, and there was no chance of Jonghyun disagreeing. “You haven’t eaten right?” 

Jonghyun shook his head. “What should we get?” 

“Ssambap?”

Dongho really wasn’t subtle about wanting to cheer him up, but well, Jonghyun appreciated it.

“Are you driving? Or are we taking a taxi?” 

“I’ll drive,” Dongho said. He turned his computer off, and Jonghyun put the headphones away. “You ready?”

Walking to the car took little time, but the ride itself would take a while. Jonghyun cracked his window open to try and breathe before the air conditioning kicked in. His stomach growled. 

As always with Dongho, there was music playing in the car. Jonghyun was happy listening to his playlists. Outside the window, the city went by in washes of color interspersed between dark buildings.

Dongho sang under his breath. Jonghyun leaned his head against the headrest and let his eyes fall shut. 

He’d never get tired of Dongho’s voice. Never. 

At each red light, Jonghyun shrugged off the weight of Dongho’s worried eyes. 

 

\--

 

He was tempting fate at this point. Jonghyun had done his best to wish away the changes, but it hadn’t worked. 

So he kept acting off and so Dongho kept inviting him different places. Jonghyun had declined an offer to go out and eat, citing that he was too tired, and Dongho had invited him to his apartment instead.

Jonghyun agreed, and that was where he was now, sprawled out on his stomach on Dongho's bed. They hadn't talked much, instead enjoying each other's presence in silence and messing with their phones. 

He'd taken Dongho up on his offer of a beer, and it was one of his favorites. Dongho hadn't had them last time he'd come over.

Jonghyun sat up and took a sip. 

“Jonghyun,” Dongho said, before Jonghyun could lay back down. He looked up from his drink, heart in his throat as Dongho sat up across from him. “Tell me what’s wrong?”

It wasn’t that simple. Jonghyun couldn’t just tell him, but he also couldn’t lie, and even he recognized that pushing it off would only make things worse. 

“It’s not a big deal. It’s just—” Jonghyun did a vague circular gesture near his head. “I’m working through stuff.” 

“It’s been over a week. Minki asked me if anything happened between us.” 

Jonghyun winced. It all sounded so juvenile phrased like that. They didn’t need to talk around each other to keep things going smoothly. They hadn’t needed that for years.

“It’s because of me,” Dongho said, and he sounded so very certain. He took one more look at Jonghyun’s face and nodded again. 

“It’s not because of you,” Jonghyun said, and that one wasn’t a lie. This wasn’t Dongho’s fault, and he didn’t deserve to blame himself for Jonghyun’s mess. 

“You keep being weird around me.” 

“Not because of you.” 

It was because of Jonghyun. Dongho was doing nothing new; it had been Jonghyun who got all weird about how Dongho made him feel. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen to ten-year friendships. 

Jonghyun loved Dongho because they’d grown up together. They were friends. He considered Dongho family.

You can't just develop feelings for someone like that.

“It’s in my head,” he said. “I need to think something through.”

“I can help.” Now Dongho looked more concerned, and Jonghyun did his best to meet his gaze. In the past, he'd gone to Dongho for advice and to have it pointed out that he was way overthinking everything. That wouldn't work for this. 

Jonghyun still had an issue with making things fifty times as complicated as they needed to be, but this one was warranted. 

“I can handle it,” Jonghyun said. 

“You haven’t been.” 

“I have!” Jonghyun thought he’d been doing okay-ish. He wasn’t actively avoiding Dongho or anything.

Dongho didn’t say anything back right away, and it hit Jonghyun how defensive he sounded. He thinned his lips. The threads on his flannel pajama pants became interesting.

“I’m worried about you,” Dongho said.

“I just—” Jonghyun stopped. He just what? What could he possibly tell Dongho? “I need to clear my head of some stuff.”

Dongho waited for more, and Jonghyun stumbled forward.

“I keep getting weird feelings, like, about—” Dongho’s lips-- "about you, but just give me a week or two, and I’ll be fine. Promise.”

“What kind of weird feelings?” Dongho had to see how nervous he was.

“Like being--" He gestured awkwardly between them. "With you.” That was an awful explanation. It wasn't even an explanation. 

Jonghyun laughed, and it sounded panicked even to his ears, but he didn’t know how to make it better. “I don't know.” 

Dongho’s eyebrows furrowed, and he nodded once, then again, then a third time, like he'd actually understood what Jonghyun meant. Jonghyun couldn’t bear to look away.

“It’s probably because we’ve all been so busy. Like, I should go out more, you know? At least to see friends. I spend a lot of time with you.” He was babbling.

“You don’t have to.” 

“I want to,” Jonghyun said. It had been a while since he’d dated and even longer since he’d been with a man. “I need to, I don't know. Get my head on straight or something.” Cabin fever was a thing, right? It wasn't a thing he'd ever had, but it was a thing. 

Dongho smiled, and Jonghyun blinked at the absurd response, running what he'd said through his head again.

“Really?" he asked, and Dongho's shoulders shook a little. "I'm being serious. Don't--don't laugh." But now Dongho was giggling aloud, and Jonghyun had always struggled to keep a straight face when Dongho was laughing. 

This was too much. He’d been telling Dongho something important, and Dongho was laughing at a bad pun.

It lifted a weight off him, but he also had to blink fast because his eyes burned with tears and curse how his first reaction to anything was always to cry. Dongho's gaze had gone incredibly soft.

It had never been a question if this would mess things up—they’d been through too much for his dumb feelings to affect anything—, but the reassurance was still nice. No matter what Jonghyun was feeling, it was still them, and it would still be them. This would be okay.

He tilted his head up to stop the tears before they could even consider falling. Dongho rested a gentle hand on his shoulder, even though he had to stretch since they'd sat so far away.

“'With me,'” Dongho echoed. "You mean, a crush?" He sounded every bit as uncertain about what words to use as Jonghyun.

Jonghyun didn't know. Crush wasn't close to the right word, somehow simultaneously not enough and too much. They were for people who recently met, who didn't know each other well. "Maybe?" He pulled back to look at Dongho again, scooching a reasonable distance away. 

“What do you want to do?” 

“About it?”

“With me.” Oh.

Jonghyun wasn’t about to answer that. It was too much. He had too many things he could say, everything that had been swirling around his head ever since this first started happening.

“I want to understand what you’re saying,” Dongho said.

“Why?”

“So we're on the same page.”

"What do you think then?" 

"That you're thinking about this way too hard.”

“I’m trying to move past it,” Jonghyun said.

"You don't have to." 

“What… do you mean?” 

Dongho motioned him over, and as though in a trance, Jonghyun slid closer. The bed squeaked under him. It was still further apart than they normally sat. 

"We could always try it," Dongho said. “It doesn’t have to be any different, but if you want to kiss me or whatever, that'd be okay.”

He kept the words casual, and it didn’t fool Jonghyun for a single second. This was serious, and Dongho wouldn't have said that only for Jonghyun's sake. 

“Are you confessing to me right now?” He swallowed an awkward laugh because he didn’t want to upset Dongho, no matter how ridiculous this all sounded. Jonghyun hadn't considered Dongho doing anything but agreeing it was odd for Jonghyun to feel anything towards him. 

“I’m saying it doesn’t have to be complicated. You want to, and I do too, and that’s all we need, right?” 

“You want to,” Jonghyun repeated. Dongho was blushing. For the first time, Jonghyun wondered if this conversation was hard for both of them. He kind of liked that it was, liked that this was becoming more like meeting together in the middle than him desperately backpedaling.

“We don't have to make any big decisions yet. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”

Jonghyun nodded slowly. Everything about being with Dongho was so impossibly strange, but lots of things that started out like that ended up being good. Jonghyun had been flying blind and promising Dongho everything would go away, and he had no idea how to make any of that happen. Maybe Dongho was right.

But there was so much to figure out, too. How everything would work. How this would change things for them. They couldn't just ignore that stuff--but maybe Dongho was right. Jonghyun liked to play it safe, to introduce new things slowly and keep to his normal routines. Sometimes playing things by ear worked better. They could deal with everything else later. 

“This is a bad idea,” Jonghyun said, and Dongho grinned at him. His heart flipped over, and it was too much at once. “Hey, I still haven’t agreed.” Even though his answer was becoming more clear.

Dongho got the message and dimmed his smile down to part-sun brightness level.

Maybe this would work. It didn’t have to be long-term if it messed things up, and there didn’t need to be labels or anything, and this was maybe not as bad of an idea as he first thought, now that Jonghyun allowed himself to imagine it.

“It’s better than what we were doing," Dongho said.

“Okay,” Jonghyun said. He got the same excited rush as he always got when Dongho smiled because of him. “Yeah, okay.” He did it back. 

But he still didn’t know what to do next. It was awkward, and his relationship with Dongho was so far past awkward, he was kinda surprised it could go back at all.

Jonghyun waited for Dongho to say something.

He was thinking. That much was obvious from his face. 

“Come for a drive?” Dongho asked. "Not to go anywhere. Let's just drive." And somehow it was exactly what Jonghyun wanted to do.

 

It’s when Dongho goes to drop him off, hours later—though they’d passed like minutes—that Jonghyun struggles with how to say goodbye, if it’s supposed to be any different. Dongho reaches out, and his fingers brush Jonghyun’s cheek. 

Time freezes. 

It’s far from an uncommon gesture, but Jonghyun’s lungs hold his breath hostage. 

It's not as weird as it should be. 

It’s nice. 

 

\--

 

Minhyun’s house was bare and spotless and Dongho stood on the edge of his rug, half on the hardwood, half on the carpet, and still in his slippers. He had an unopened soda in hand, dripping condensation. Minhyun hadn’t bothered to say anything to him, but the unamused draw of his face had Jonghyun grinning. 

Jonghyun joined him on the edge of the carpet, masking his movement as interest in what Minhyun was saying. They were picking a movie, and so far all that had happened was they’d agreed on not watching anything Marvel-related. 

It was too soon.

As soon as Jonghyun stepped onto the edge of the rug, Dongho’s arm wrapped around his waist. Jonghyun jolted, which made him lose his balance, which made Dongho really have to grab his waist--

The others laughed. At Jonghyun’s red face, at the well-worn jokes thrown around about his clumsiness. Jonghyun did too.

“You’re lucky Dongho caught you,” Minki said, even though Dongho never would’ve let him fall. 

At least Minki would take this as a final sign that everything was good again between them. 

None of them were going to guess just how things became good again though, Jonghyun was certain of that. He was glad. Telling other people about this was on the list of complicated things he wasn’t ready to deal with yet. 

Jonghyun joined Aaron on the couch. He still looked bummed.

“It’s okay, hyung,” Jonghyun said. “It was kinda funny.” 

They’d tried to watch an American show Aaron had insisted was hilarious, but it had ended (predictably) with Aaron complaining that the translation killed all the best jokes.

“I liked it,” Dongho said. He took a seat next to Jonghyun, immediately scooching close enough that their thighs brushed. 

Not that that was a big deal or anything. Jonghyun just noticed stuff like that more now. 

“It was better than that other cartoon.” Minki wasn’t on the couch because he'd instead elected to lay on the floor with his feet against the wall, about a meter high. He kept shifting around and bending his neck like it was sore, but he'd yet to move. 

Minhyun came back from the kitchen; he’d probably taken an extra minute or two to fix his fridge up again. Dongho had been laughing way too much in there to just have taken something and come back. 

It wasn't that they wanted to give Minhyun extra work; they were just required to mess with something in Minhyun's apartment. It was tradition, and there had been a distinct lack of doing that for way too long. 

“I see your taste in dramas hasn’t gotten better.” Aaron was scrolling through Minhyun’s recommended section. Jonghyun wasn’t surprised with the results; Minhyun had always had a thing for the sappier love stories. 

“Well you should know,” Minhyun said. “You came over a couple days ago to make me watch ‘My Secret Romance’ with you.” 

Jonghyun laughed. “Really, hyung?” 

“Shut up.” Aaron bumped his shoulder against Jonghyun’s, and he leaned into Dongho. Jonghyun dropped a hand on Dongho’s thigh to steady himself. Dongho put his arm behind Jonghyun, onto the back of the sofa. 

“Can we just choose something?” Minki asked.

“Let’s watch something scary,” Jonghyun proposed.

“Absolutely not,” Minki said. He could never sleep well after horror movies.

“We’re all sleeping here tonight. You’ll be good! And tomorrow you can sleep with me if you want.” 

“I don't think you've come back before I fell asleep once this week," Minki said.

Well, it was only Wednesday. 

“What? You’re going outside?” Minhyun asked, all innocently. He grinned when Jonghyun made a face at him.

Jonghyun had started going on late night drives with Dongho. They could talk about everything and nothing, and time flew by quicker than the city around them. Yesterday they’d left early enough to watch the sunset. It was unproductive and a waste of time and Jonghyun loved every single second. They'd gone to Dongho's place afterward, and Jonghyun thought he might finally be getting how this could all work out. 

“You’re not dating someone, are you?” Aaron asked. Jonghyun had never been too big on dating, but the few relationships he’d had had always been marked by him leaving the dorm much more than usual.

He could see how Aaron reached that conclusion.

Jonghyun made himself laugh. “Dongho and me have been driving around. It’s fun.” He patted Dongho’s thigh and leaned back to get more comfortable—which meant leaning into Dongho’s arm. 

They dropped it then, because Jonghyun had shut down any fun directions the conversation could take by saying it was Dongho, who he of course wasn’t dating. (Right?)

"How about this?" Minhyun said. He clicked on a comedy movie Jonghyun had never heard of. The description was simple, but it looked interesting enough. 

In the end, the movie was decent but not great. Jonghyun had laughed throughout it, even if that was partially because Dongho’s laughter was so crazily infectious. 

It was well into the early morning when a phone on the table lit up and began to buzz. Jonghyun couldn’t read the caller ID from where he was, but it wasn’t his phone. He lifted his head off Dongho’s shoulder to see who claimed it. Minki answered and went to another room to talk. 

“Are they asleep?” Dongho said, his voice quiet but still above a whisper. Aaron had his head on Minhyun’s shoulder, and Minhyun had his head tilted back onto the cushions in a way that would definitely be painful when he woke up. 

“I guess I’ll pause this then,” Jonghyun said. They might as well wait for Minki to be back. 

Jonghyun twisted to grab the remote and flinched when Dongho poked his side. He bumped into Aaron, who didn't move.

“Stop it,” Jonghyun grumbled. He tried to catch Dongho’s wrist as he paused the television, but it didn’t work. Dongho intertwined their fingers and poked him with the other hand.

He was giggling, and Jonghyun’s heart did all sorts of somersaults, even as Dongho managed to grab his other wrist too. Jonghyun tried to figure out how to get the upper hand.

He had an idea, but it wasn't a good one. Still, it could work.

Jonghyun worked out the logistics, his eyes going from Dongho’s hands to how they were sitting to Dongho’s lips. He pulled Dongho’s hands towards him. It didn't accomplish much, but Jonghyun used the momentum to rise and lean far enough to gently peck his lips.

He miscalculated, and their lips only brushed. It still worked out.

Dongho dropped Jonghyun's hands, and he flinched back, and his eyes went all wide only for him to dissolve into a squinty smile and reddening ears.

Jonghyun’s cheeks burned with both heat and the strain of smiling so hard for so long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part of why im writing this is bc im bad at writing fast-paced fics and Wow it's Weird having the confession in the 2nd chapter but no worries there's still some to go!! Thank you for reading + any comments/kudos!
> 
> Happy JR Day!!!


	3. Round Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was an escape, though it had been going on long enough that reality spilled in through spiderweb cracks. That wasn't a bad thing, per se. Just a thing.

They’d moved Dongho’s giant Ping out of the way, but Jonghyun kept seeing its wide, unblinking eye from the corner of his vision. It had him oddly on edge, and he wasn’t sure if it was the strange look of the plushie or the reminder that came with it.

This was an escape, though it had been going on long enough that reality spilled in through spiderweb cracks. That wasn't a bad thing, per se. Just a thing.

Soft music played, and Jonghyun was sprawled on top of Dongho, one leg bent, the other straight, his hips slightly higher than Dongho’s own. Dongho’s hair was fluffy and looked so soft, but Jonghyun had so far avoided touching it. He didn’t want to make Dongho look too thoroughly ruffled or kissed or whatever.

Avoiding his hair or not, Jonghyun had failed. He pulled back to look at him, breathing heavy, appreciating how Dongho’s rapid breaths matched Jonghyun's own. Dongho's lips were red and parted, and he had this whole look in his eyes, all hazy and unfairly hot.

They’d have to fix that before they left, but that was a problem for future them.

Jonghyun’s hands had found a good place on Dongho’s shoulders, somewhere he could grip. He rubbed slow circles with his palms and pressed their lips together again. When they’d parted before, Dongho’s hands had frozen on Jonghyun’s back. Now they roamed.

Light fingers and warm palms traveled down Jonghyun’s sides, over his back. Dongho drew an invisible line at Jonghyun’s waist and didn’t wander any further down, but he didn’t have the same reservations with Jonghyun’s hair as Jonghyun had with his.

It was maddening, in all the best ways. Not only was it mind-blowingly hot, but the way Dongho touched him was so gentle and careful and constant--

It was everything, and way, way too much.

Jonghyun pulled back before Dongho could notice he was getting hard. Dongho's hands slid to his waist when Jonghyun sat up, seemingly content to wait and see what he was going to do.

"We should slow down," Jonghyun said. He couldn’t remember how exactly this had begun. They’d been joking around, then kissing, then joking _and_ kissing—

Dongho nodded and propped himself up on his elbows. He had a white t-shirt on, and it pulled tight across his chest. Fuck, that was hot. Somehow, despite how Jonghyun had called Dongho cute and handsome and sexy without reservations for years, he’d never made the connection between that and how he was very, very attracted to Dongho. 

Not until this all started, at least. 

Jonghyun rolled off. There was no way for them to lay next to each other on the couch, so it took a few seconds of rearranging to get comfortable. Dongho sat close enough that their thighs touched.

There were goosebumps on Jonghyun's skin, but the room itself wasn’t cold. He'd been so overheated in Dongho's arms. Jonghyun shifted the tiniest bit closer.

He slipped his arm behind Dongho’s back, and Dongho leaned into him, resting his head on his shoulder. Strands of Dongho’s hair moved under the gentle wind of Jonghyun’s breathing, and Jonghyun could stay like this forever.

It was funny, how they switched between the easy familiarity Jonghyun was long used to and an unfamiliar tentativeness where every touch sent a shock rippling through him. Jonghyun couldn’t get enough of it. He wished he could put that into words. Dongho would understand exactly what he meant; he was good at that.

“You’re—” The word jumped from his lips before Jonghyun had the rest planned, and he scrambled to finish only to lose it completely.

"I'm what?"

A pause. Dongho was a lot of things. So many things. That didn't help Jonghyun figure out what to say.

"You're cool," he said finally, and it was the dumbest thing he's ever said.

Jonghyun tilted his face away. He was so used to giving Dongho compliments, all with the intent to fluster him, but now they affected him more than anything.

“You too,” Dongho said, and he shifted so their faces were close, then kissed Jonghyun's cheek. Oh. His entire face grew hot, and how was it so hard to look at Dongho now? They'd been making out only a couple minutes ago.

Dongho had this shy, bright smile and red ears, and Jonghyun was in this far. Really, really far. A lot further than he’d first expected and leagues further than he thought he’d ever get.

He had such a pretty smile. Jonghyun had known that for a long time, and he'd told Dongho that before, just so he'd get to see it again. Now Jonghyun couldn't look away.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t expected feelings. That would’ve been more than dumb, considering Jonghyun already told Dongho he loved him on a regular basis. He did that with all his members though. Literally every one of his calls with Minki ended with them exchanging 'I love you's, and he said it often enough to Minhyun and Aaron too.

This was different. Remarkably, remarkably different. Now Jonghyun wasn’t sure if he should tell Dongho he loved him or whatever anymore. There was more weight involved. Compliments hit harder.

Touches lingered.

A new song began, and Dongho hummed the melody. Jonghyun listened to him for a bit, then joined in.

Dongho had shown Jonghyun a playlist he’d made for him a couple hours earlier, and they'd started listening and talking about the songs. It was nothing new for Dongho to share music with anyone he thought would enjoy it, but Jonghyun had struggled to thank him in a way that felt right. 

Finally, a song had come on that Jonghyun was certain wasn't Dongho's taste, and it had hit him that Dongho hadn't created a playlist of songs he thought were good, he'd created one full of songs he thought Jonghyun would enjoy.

They'd started kissing not long after that.

If Jonghyun was honest, he wanted to do a lot more kissing. The goosebumps had faded, and the break had given time for him to calm down, and technically, there was no reason they couldn’t resume everything again.

But Dongho had curled up, and Jonghyun couldn’t interrupt him. He leaned his head down so it rested on Dongho’s, and his hair tickled Jonghyun’s nose.

Even from this angle, he could see the giant Ping. Jonghyun chuckled. In a way, he'd displaced it. Dongho had napped while cuddling it more than once on this couch.

"Hm?" Dongho asked.

"Your Ping is watching me."

Dongho shifted to look at it, and Jonghyun kinda wished he wouldn't have said anything that made Dongho move. "He does that sometimes."

"Only sometimes?" Jonghyun took the opportunity to grab his phone and blinked at the time. He had set an alarm as a just-in-case if they ended up taking a nap or losing track of time or whatever. It was only fifteen minutes out. “We’ve got practice soon."

Dongho lifted his head. From so close, he could see the traces of the kisses they'd exchanged on Dongho’s lips, but maybe he imagined them. “You sound surprised.”

Jonghyun only made a noncommittal sound back. He rarely lost track of time on days they had schedules.

In an odd sense, this was thrilling. Like, Jonghyun would never arrive late to something because of this, but losing track of time meant relaxing and living in the moment for a while, and that was good. He didn't do that enough.

“What time’s it?” Dongho asked, and Jonghyun told him. “We should get ready.” Jonghyun related to the grumble in his voice. He didn't want to get up either.

Despite his words, Dongho kept Jonghyun close. He ran his fingers through Jonghyun’s hair, once, twice, a third time. Jonghyun shut his eyes. Dongho’s fingers were gentle, and any remaining tension drained from him.

So much for getting up, but this was fine. It wasn't like they had to rush.

Dongho poked his cheek. Jonghyun scrunched up his nose and blinked a few times.

He looked entirely too amused. “Your hair’s a mess,” he said. “We should get ready.”

"Really?" Jonghyun hopped up. No one would look at his hair and put everything together, but someone might ask him about it, and then Jonghyun would have to lie or say he’ll tell them later or something. Jonghyun didn’t want to do that until he and Dongho actually talked about what they were.

The ‘no labels, no stress’ plan worked when Jonghyun had thought the only way to handle this was to make it go away, but that clearly wasn’t the case. This made them both happy.

But that was a talk for later.

Jonghyun ran a hand through his hair and was impressed by just how much was out of place.

Dongho giggled, and Jonghyun swatted at him half-heartedly. He missed.

“Did you have to do this?” Jonghyun complained. He gestured towards his hair, and Dongho grabbed his hand before he could drop it.

He intertwined their fingers and led Jonghyun towards the bathroom. “Of course,” he said, and Jonghyun didn’t bother to feign annoyance. 

With the aid of a mirror, most of his hair fell back into place without much struggle. A single lock jumped towards the air, and against his will, Jonghyun joined in with Dongho's laughter. No other person in the entire world had a laugh as infectious as his.

“Harry Potter,” Dongho said. “You’re Harry Potter.”

One hand flattening his hair, Jonghyun glared through the mirror. Harry Potter remained a touchy subject for them, as none of the others understood his emotional attachment to the series.

He took his hand off, and the clump popped back up. Jonghyun collapsed against the sink, bracing himself with both hands. Their laughter echoed off the tile.

 

\--

 

Jonghyun had once heard writing described as taking a piece of paper and bleeding all over it, and when he’d heard that, he’d thought he understood. And maybe he did, after there were times where writing became such a need he’d explode without it, but then he’d take entire pages and crumple them up. They hadn’t been what anyone would’ve wanted to see.

That was a long time ago now, but the occasional force of words still winded him. These hadn’t spilled from him like blood. Maybe like a shaken soda, certainly nothing catastrophic but a surprise all the same.

He’d been writing lyrics for a decade, and he was still bad at metaphors.

Spilled soda or not, the lyrics looked good. Jonghyun had had that brilliant sense while writing that these would work. He wasn’t just forcing something out; it wouldn’t need five million edits to sound okay. This was mostly what he wanted, at least for a draft.

He had let the words ruminate in his head for a while first. They weren’t at the point of any hard deadlines, but Bumzu had asked him about lyrics a couple days ago, and Jonghyun had had little to show. He was glad to have more now.

Except when he looked back at the words, his heart seized up. These were nothing overly personal; Jonghyun had been there before when he’d first taken ‘With’s lyrics to Bumzu and when his members first listened to it, and then again when everyone did, and they played the song all over fansigns and events and everything.

This wasn’t like that. It was a simple couple verses with some relatable ideas about love. Something about the uncertainty that came around when you found a good thing. Something everyone experienced.

The words stood stark against the blue-lined paper, and Jonghyun picked up his pencil. He’d been thinking about labels. Dongho hadn’t said anything about them yet, and Jonghyun knew the real discussion would come when they talked together, but it would be unfair of him to still be so fuzzy when they spoke.

The problem was that ‘dating’ seemed like such a simple, wrong word. Jonghyun had never dated someone that he hadn’t actually gone on dates with. Like, he and Dongho hung out like they always did, and yeah, there was more to hanging out now. In some ways, things were super different. In others, absolutely the same. 

He wasn't sure if dating covered all that, and this was all during the closest thing they got to downtime. As soon as everything picked up again, they’d go back to being too tired for late night drives, and once they went on tour they’d struggle to steal even a second alone. 

Jonghyun was so far ahead of himself it wasn't even funny. None of this stuff ever seemed like an issue when he was actually with Dongho. Everything was so easy, and it was nice. More than nice. Jonghyun didn't want to mess it up.

His phone buzzed, and it was Dongho. He’d asked Jonghyun to come by their studio soon, whether he’d finished or not. It wasn’t too uncommon for Bumzu and Dongho to help him with a word here and there, to collaborate in the writing process.

Jonghyun read the lyrics again. He tapped the pencil along the words.

Maybe this wasn’t what he wanted. Jonghyun had a lot of practice with writing in a way that balanced uniqueness with relatability, but this time it seemed way too personal for the kind of song they were working on.

Normally he’d ask Dongho and Bumzu, but something told him that wouldn’t work this time. Bumzu wouldn't think they were personal at all, and Dongho would read right through them.

His phone buzzed again, and now Dongho was calling him.

“Hello?”

“Are you still coming?” Dongho asked. “We’re waiting for you.”

“I’m on my way. Think I figured it out, just give me ten minutes.”

Dongho hummed and hung up without a goodbye. Jonghyun's phone returned to the home screen.

He had to show them something, and he liked what he'd written. Jonghyun and Dongho were going to talk about everything anyway sometime, and there was only one line that directly matched their situation. The rest were more abstract.

He erased that line and rewrote it. There. Now there weren't any that directly matched them. Absolutely no way that these lyrics were overly personal. Dongho would still know, but that wasn't a problem.

Jonghyun stuffed his notebook into his bag and threw it over his shoulder.

 

He greeted Bumzu and Dongho with apologetic americanos, fresh from a machine that made decent coffee at its best. It had taken him twenty minutes to get there.

“So?” Dongho asked. He had to tilt his head up to see Jonghyun's face past his baseball cap. “You said you worked it out?”

“I think so.” Jonghyun pulled his notebook out. He worried at his lip while they read them. There were eraser marks all over the page, but Jonghyun couldn’t take his eyes off what he’d changed last. The upside-down words didn’t look right.

Bumzu nodded a few times. Dongho had leaned close to read them too, but he still took the notebook from Bumzu to read through again.

The chair under Jonghyun creaked, and he slid back so he wasn’t sitting on the edge. His foot bounced a couple times, then he rested a hand on his thigh to stop it from continuing.

“I like this line,” Dongho said, pointing at one. Jonghyun smiled tightly, but the bubbling happiness in his chest dislodged some of the worry. He'd liked that one a lot too.

Dongho tapped the line Jonghyun had changed. “This doesn’t fit,” he said. "The 'since we met...'" Dongho bent closer to the page, like he couldn’t read it. The dye in his hair was fading. He needed to either get it redone or change the color.

“What was it before?” Dongho asked, and oh, he was trying to read the poorly erased words below it.

“Uh—” Jonghyun paused. “I don’t remember.”

Dongho passed it to Bumzu. “What do you think?”

“How much do you mind us changing it?” Bumzu asked. Jonghyun reread the line in his head, and fuck, it was the wrong amount of syllables entirely. It wasn’t even close.

“Sure, that’s fine.”

“We’ll go back to that,” Bumzu said. “It’s not a big deal now. These look good, Jonghyun.” He passed them back.

The flooding relief tasted bittersweet, and maybe the problem never lied with the lyrics in the first place. 

 

\--

 

Jonghyun buried a yawn into the back of his hand. He was propped against a wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. Aaron sat beside him, and they both kept their heads down to avoid the intermittent flashes of the camera.

Hopefully the shoot would finish up soon. He and Aaron had gotten the go-ahead to change back into the clothes they’d come in, and now they waited for the others to finish. Minki and Minhyun were up now, with Minhyun leaned forward in a chair and Minki standing by his side.

A staff member instructed Minki to shift his hand so the collar of Minhyun’s shirt wasn’t caught under his fingertips.

Dongho was off to the side, smiling at the whole thing and talking quietly to a camera. Jonghyun and Aaron had filmed their own portions already, oohing and awing at the individual shots of the others. Dongho pitched his voice loud enough for Minhyun and Minki to hear, and Minhyun laughed.

It had probably been something about Minhyun looking handsome. Jonghyun strained to try and catch what he was saying now but to no avail.

“So… You and Dongho?” Aaron asked.

Jonghyun straightened. He'd been bent forward to try and listen. “What?” He twisted to face Aaron, his tone hushed even though they’d found an empty corner, and no one would hear them unless they shouted.

“You’re dating? Or something?” Aaron had one leg pulled up to his chest, and the other extended out. He’d also lowered his volume, though probably because he wasn't sure how to go about this conversation, not the fear of someone overhearing.

Jonghyun still had no words to describe his relationship with Dongho. Faced with the explicit question, he went to say something and stopped, then went to say something and stopped again.

“Yeah,” he settled on, finally. They’d go with 'or something.' “How did you know?”

“You’ve been staring.”

“Yeah, but how did you _know?”_

“I’m your hyung! It’s my job to know what's going on.”

Jonghyun raised his eyebrows. “Really?” He hadn’t thought they’d been obvious, not even for their members to catch on. Dongho laughed from the front, and Jonghyun bit his cheek hard enough to sting.

“Or I saw you kiss in Minhyun’s living room.”

“Hyung,” Jonghyun said, unimpressed.

“You can only bump me so many times before I wake up.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Aaron shrugged a shoulder. “Figured you two would. But it’s been a couple weeks now, so.”

They hadn’t talked about this either, but Jonghyun couldn’t imagine Dongho minding that the others knew. If anything, he’d probably dealt with the same creeping guilt as Jonghyun. They hadn’t lied or anything like that, but this wasn’t meant to be a secret.

“You don’t think it’s weird?” Jonghyun asked. Aaron’s eyebrows pulled together, lines stretching across his forehead.

Unsure, maybe. Out of his element.

“It’s super weird,” Aaron said. He laughed. “This isn’t a conversation I ever expected to have.”

Jonghyun's heart sank to the ground. Through the ground. All the way into the cold dirt. 

The camera flashed. Now Minki was on the chair, with Dongho behind him. Minhyun was gone—likely changing.

"I can't give you advice for this one," Aaron said, and Jonghyun thawed.

"I'd never go to you again anyway." They’d once relied on Aaron for dating advice, back when they’d been teenagers. Other options were hard to find. Jonghyun would’ve been mortified to ask his sister.

Aaron hadn’t been all that good at advice, but he’d tried.

“As long as you’re happy though, right?” Aaron smiled, and Jonghyun wondered how caught up he'd been with everything that he hadn't noticed Aaron holding something back from him.

“It’s been good,” Jonghyun said. Better than good. The camera flashes stopped, and Jonghyun’s eyes followed Dongho as he ducked down the hallway towards where they’d all left their clothes. “I didn’t expect it either,” he admitted.

“Hm?”

“It’s new,” Jonghyun said. Aaron seemed to wait for more, and even though they only had another moment or two before the others joined them, the words spilled out. “That’s why it’s weird. It’d be one thing if it was always like this, but it wasn’t.”

For a decade, Dongho was one of his closest friends and someone Jonghyun constantly relied on and couldn’t imagine life without. Now, they were dating? Together? Something? Whatever it was, Jonghyun wouldn't trade it for anything.

“Does it matter?” Aaron asked, and of course he’d say that. “Okay, so it matters,” he amended.

Minhyun was coming towards them.

“I don’t want to mess things up.” Anything. Not between him and Dongho or between all of them or anything. Things were going well for them, and Jonghyun wanted it to stay like that.

"What does Dongho think about that?"

"I haven't asked him."

"You should do that."

"Hyung, what happened to not giving advice?" Jonghyun asked, even though Aaron was right. It was past time for him and Dongho to talk about this stuff.

Aaron held his hands up in a gesture of innocence. “Just make sure you’re happy,” he said. “The last thing any of us want is you two being unhappy—especially because of the group.”

Jonghyun made a face. “Are you giving me the ‘it’s okay to want things outside of Nu’est’ talk? You can’t give me that; I _made_ that talk.”

“Yeah, and you gave it to us twice before bothering to ask if any of us wanted anything else.” Aaron smirked.

“Shut up,” Jonghyun grumbled. He’d meant it in multiple ways back then. It had been before they’d renewed contracts, but it was also about them being Nu’est in the way they all wanted to. Jonghyun had thought it was important, even if no one had wanted something other than Nu'est. Still did think so.

“You needed to hear it," Aaron said.

“It’s mine. I copyrighted it.”

“Yeah, well, I sampled it."

Jonghyun bumped his shoulder into Aaron, who laughed.

“What’s up?” Minhyun asked. He towered over them, one hand in the pocket of his jeans.

Jonghyun tilted his head against the wall to see Minhyun’s face. “The ‘it’s okay to want things other than Nu’est’ talk is mine, right? Like, I own it?”

“Why are you giving that again?” Minhyun stepped directly in front of Aaron. “You going solo, hyung?”

Aaron flipped him off, and Minhyun laughed. He held out both hands, and Aaron grabbed them and stood. Jonghyun jumped up next to them, right as Minki and Dongho neared.

“We’re going straight to that Spoonz thing, right?” Aaron asked, once they’d all gathered.

“Mhm. There’ll be food there,” Jonghyun said.

Dongho perked up at the mention of food, and it was only then that Jonghyun realized he'd turned towards Dongho specifically to see that reaction.

He'd talk to Dongho soon. Just to clear things up. 

Jonghyun hung back as they left. Dongho and Minki were whispering together, with Aaron occasionally joining in, and Minhyun was off in his own world. They looked so happy. 

Maybe Aaron was right. Maybe nothing that made him happy could mess this up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to anyone who leaves kudos and comments! I hope you enjoyed!!


	4. Tower~ing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Maybe you did sweep me off my feet,” Jonghyun said. He smiled. “Does that mean I need to sweep you off yours?” He held out his arms, like Dongho was going to pitch into them, like he could actually catch Dongho if he did.

Sometimes Jonghyun thought he had a problem. So used to being a leader and keeping things in line and planning everything out, and yet the biggest things always seemed spontaneous. Inexplicable.

This qualified.

It had started out simple. He and Dongho were going on what was likely their last late-night drive for a while. They didn’t have a destination in their heads, and Jonghyun messed with his hands and fiddled with the radio and stole looks at Dongho. Nothing unusual.

In a few days, they’d leave for America. Then Thailand. Then Hong Kong. Then Indonesia? Or maybe Malaysia? In any case, from tomorrow on, their practices would be brutal. Jonghyun sparkled with anticipation and joy and everything that came along with a tour. The dates weren’t mashed close enough together for it to be like the past, where sometimes Jonghyun would wake up and not be exactly sure where he was, but it would be big and saturated with adrenaline and everything he loved about performing. 

He couldn't wait. But first was tonight, and Jonghyun didn't want it to race by. 

Dongho had offered to let him drive, but Dongho loved it more than he did. Jonghyun was happy to watch. 

They were listening to one of his favorite songs. It was upbeat, and they were both singing along and laughing because Jonghyun was off on every note even a little out of his comfortable range. So far off. And Dongho kept telling him that he was doing well if he got close, and it was utterly ridiculous. Dongho's voice cracked on a note, and he looked so surprised by it that they laughed harder, until they couldn't sing at all.

Road lights ran over Dongho’s face. They highlighted him in whites and reds and greens, and Jonghyun watched like he'd never seen bright lights on Dongho's face before, like he didn't stand with him on stage all the time. It was as the song ended that everything started.

“I really like you,” Jonghyun said, and he hadn’t planned to say that but it was loud and sure and emphatic in the silence between songs. Jonghyun’s voice was raspy. He cleared his throat and considered trying to save face, but Dongho was smiling, and it was bright and pretty. Jonghyun couldn’t say a thing. 

“I know,” Dongho said, and he let Jonghyun sputter before adding, “I really like you too.”

It wasn’t like Jonghyun had been trying to hide it, so that wasn’t a surprise. And he’d known Dongho liked him too. He wasn’t exactly sure when things changed or whatever, but they had.

Past the point of no return and all that, all that, all that. 

“The tour starts soon,” Jonghyun said, his tongue awkward in his mouth. The words sounded normal to his ears, but his heart sank like he was mourning something, even though he'd spend even more time daily with Dongho. “We won’t be able to do this.”

“We’ll come back soon enough.” 

“Yeah, in time for a comeback.”

Dongho shot him a look, and his concern told Jonghyun he wasn’t as good at controlling his voice as he thought. 

“We’ll figure it out,” Dongho said. “Go slow or whatever.”

Go slow. The whole idea of that was somewhat laughable. Jonghyun and Dongho had always added to each other’s chaos; jokes and games and laughter always escalated when it was the two of them, and it was exhilarating. Jonghyun loved it. 

Like, loved it, loved it. Wouldn’t change a thing, ever, not even when only the other day that escalation led to them making out in Jonghyun's room and freezing like criminals when Minki returned, only to lose it when he started singing in his bedroom. 

“We’re bad at that,” Jonghyun noted. 

“Well, we’ve got a whole tour between us,” Dongho said. “If you’re worried.” 

“Are you?” 

“I don’t want to worry about this,” Dongho said. “It’s a good thing.”

“Right,” Jonghyun said and went out on a limb. “So we're dating then? Just like that?” A far limb. 

“How else would we do it?” 

“I don’t know. Just, this is different than—it’s just different, you know?” 

“We can go on a date if you want,” Dongho said. “Ask each other questions.”

“Like what?” Jonghyun asked incredulously. They knew way too much about each other.

“What’s your favorite color?” 

Jonghyun rolled his eyes. “Orange.” 

“What? No it’s not." 

Jonghyun laughed and gestured wildly, like ‘see!’

“Then we’ll go out and talk like we always do," Dongho said. 

“What makes it a date then?”

“Besides that we’re dating?” 

Dongho had a point there, especially counting the happy leap Jonghyun’s heart did at the reference to them dating. Wild. Life was wild. 

“So this is a date?” Jonghyun tried out. He grinned. “Good.” 

“What did you think they were?” Dongho asked. “We’ve been going out for weeks.” 

“We were just hanging out!” Jonghyun said. “I didn’t know— It happened so fast!” 

“Not for me. I liked you for ages before you noticed.” 

“What?” Jonghyun prided himself in his ability to tell if things were going on for his members. “Really?” 

But even as he asked, things slid into place. Jonghyun had been so focused on how he’d been smacked upside the head by all this that he’d kinda forgotten that it went two ways. 

“There’s a reason I put up with everything you do, you know,” Dongho said. Jonghyun grinned. Dongho said that, but he way too malleable and easy to convince to protest everything. Jonghyun was just the one who took advantage of that the most, and then Dongho played along and Jonghyun got all these happy bubbles in his chest. 

He’d always liked teasing Dongho and pushing at him and laughing with him, and Dongho had always let him. Eventually he’d strike back, and Dongho was so much stronger than him it usually sent Jonghyun reeling, and then Dongho would laugh more and pull him in close, and Jonghyun would forget about whatever temporary pain he’d felt--whether in his pride or actual, physical pain.

“But why didn’t you tell me?” Jonghyun asked. Discomfort pulled at him—not as wrenching as it could’ve been, but like a child, grabbing onto his pantleg and tugging, tugging, tugging. Jonghyun hated when his members kept secrets. Any secrets. Especially secrets that directly involved him.

“I wasn’t going to make things weird between us.”

“You made me tell you,” Jonghyun mumbled.

“Because I knew it wasn’t going to make things weird.” Dongho was smiling. “Then you got weird about it anyway.” 

“It—it was fast!” Jonghyun protested. “I had no time for it to sink in!” 

“But you were avoiding me,” Dongho said.

“Because I needed to figure out what was going on. And how to deal with it. You weren’t supposed to jump in and say I could kiss you.” 

“But aren’t you glad I did?” 

Dongho had him there, and Jonghyun didn’t mind. He turned to look out the window. It was quiet, at this time at night. The last trains had left for the night, the shops were closing up. There were still all the lights and signs and some taxis, but the people had disappeared. 

They'd turned around, Jonghyun realized. Actually, they were closer to the dorm than he'd expected. 

“Wanna go to your place?” Jonghyun proposed. “Or the studio?” He wasn't ready for tonight to end.

Dongho didn't answer with words, but he turned away from the dorm and towards his own apartment. Jonghyun grinned when it became clear they were going there, not the studio. He really wanted to kiss Dongho, and while it would be a lie to say they hadn’t kissed in the studio already, that was also not something that should become a habit. 

The car slowed and turned into the parking garage. Finding a space wore at Jonghyun’s decreasing patience. He tapped his fingertips against his leg, hopping out of the car as soon as he could. 

The ascent to Dongho’s apartment went quickly. Dongho rested his hand on the small of Jonghyun’s back in the elevator.

Once inside, Jonghyun slipped his shoes off and kicked them to the side before moving further into his apartment. He fished out his phone. It wasn’t even midnight yet. 

There were lots of options for what to do, though Jonghyun was getting tired. They’d gone to the gym together before going for a drive, and his muscles were heavy but happy. Jonghyun liked the energy he got from working out.

He leaned into the wall and waited for Dongho. They could watch a movie or maybe only talk, laying down on their backs on the floor, with their heads close together and music playing in the background. They'd talk about everything and nothing, and Jonghyun would marvel at how easy it was, at how they spent so much time together, but even when conversation dried up, he still had a good time. 

No wonder it took Dongho no time at all to realize something was up when Jonghyun got awkward with him. He still couldn’t believe Dongho had kept it a secret for however long, yet he’d teased it out of Jonghyun after a week tops. That wasn’t how these things normally went. But Dongho was right, too. Jonghyun was glad it happened like that. 

“What are you thinking about?” Dongho asked. Jonghyun's phone had gone to sleep. 

“I’m still trying to figure out how you hid things from me.” A dash of petulance crept into his tone. Dongho sucked at keeping secrets. 

“Maybe I was waiting for the right time to sweep you off your feet.” Dongho leaned against the wall, mirroring Jonghyun’s position. Jonghyun slipped his phone into his back pocket. 

“Oh yeah?” 

“And you were bad at noticing,” Dongho said. “You said it was sudden—but things have been different between us for a long time.” 

He was right. Three years ago, Jonghyun would’ve bet he knew everything there was to know about his members—and he had known them obscenely well and often to details he could’ve lived without. It wasn’t that he’d been wrong, but they’d grown together. Things had changed because everything around them had changed but somehow nothing was different. They still all worked well together.

By now, Jonghyun had long accepted that he’d never sum up everything that happened to them into a simple, logical thing. Too many variables, too much luck—all that and more. He’d stopped trying long ago, and maybe this was the same. Dongho had been his close friend for a decade, and now he was more, and now that made Jonghyun impossibly happy. Maybe he didn't need to logic it all out. 

“Maybe you did sweep me off my feet,” Jonghyun said. He smiled. “Does that mean I need to sweep you off yours?” He held out his arms, like Dongho was going to pitch into them, like he could actually catch Dongho if he did. Laughter bubbled in his voice, in his chest, in his heart. 

“But you’ll fall?” Dongho managed to look concerned for a beat before beginning to giggle, and all the trapped laughter burst out of Jonghyun. He leaned into Dongho, his forehead on Dongho’s shoulder, and Dongho wrapped his arms around him. 

 

\--

 

Jonghyun hadn’t bothered to ask Minhyun if he wanted to come to the dorm, despite how Minhyun proposed they hang out tonight. It wasn’t to be rude or anything; Minhyun just would’ve countered with a proposal to go to his apartment, and Jonghyun would’ve agreed, and it was easier to tell their manager to drop them off at Minhyun’s place without all the maneuvering. 

The two of them had finished filming for a show together, and Jonghyun was exhausted. They’d been everywhere recently; Jonghyun wasn't quite over the jetlag from their recent trip to America. But despite all that, the days were passing in a happy haze. He enjoyed everything they were doing, and his recent conversation with Dongho had cemented what he'd already known, at least on some level. They'd be okay. They'd figure it all out. Together.

“You seem happy,” Minhyun said. It was more a prompt than a question, and there was a knowing lilt to it that Jonghyun didn’t know what to make of. 

“Yeah, I guess.” The elevator ride was short, and then Jonghyun was lining his shoes up with Minhyun's. “Should I not be?” 

“What kind of question is that?” 

Minhyun’s apartment was bare as always. Like all of them, he’d accumulated an obscene amount of stuff over the past couple years—maybe even worse than the rest of them. Jonghyun wasn’t exactly certain what he did with it all. Definitely not what Jonghyun and Minki did—which was stack it all in an empty room with plans to go through it later, and the reality that they never did catch up with it entirely. 

Jonghyun could only feel vindicated by the fact that Dongho and Aaron were both definitely worse about the whole thing than him and Minki.

“What are you thinking about?” Minhyun asked, and Jonghyun stopped staring at Minhyun’s candle collection. 

“Nothing, really,” he said. “I’m just beat, I think.”

“You can sleep--” Minhyun started, but Jonghyun cut him off with a quick shake of his head. 

“We’ve got practice in like two hours,” he said. “And if I nap I won’t sleep at all tonight.”

Minhyun didn’t try to fight him. Instead, Jonghyun settled down in a chair in the corner of Minhyun’s room. They didn’t talk too much, both messing around on their phones. Jonghyun put headphones in to listen to a video.

That, of course, was when Minhyun finally said something, though it didn't seem planned, more a reaction to the fact that Dongho had sent the video to their groupchat, and Jonghyun had perked up instantly.

“So you and Dongho?” Minhyun asked, in a strange parody of what Aaron had asked a couple weeks ago. His tone was very knowing.

“Huh?” Jonghyun did no better than this time around.

“You and Dongho,” Minhyun repeated. “You’re dating.” 

A beat of silence, and then Jonghyun’s smile stretched across his face, clear and easy and nice.

“Yeah,” he said. “Did hyung tell you?”

“Dongho did,” Minhyun said. Oh. Jonghyun hadn’t realized he’d had a chance to tell anyone, but it was nice to imagine Dongho rushing to tell Minhyun. They'd always gone to each other first with news. “Your face is red,” Minhyun accused.

“You’re one to talk!” Jonghyun protested. Minhyun was awful when he started talking to someone, by far the worst of all of them about the blushing and the honeymoon phase and all that. At least Jonghyun was subtle. “You’re worse about this stuff than—than me.” Fuck, he’d stuttered. Minhyun was grinning at him like he'd just bought a new candle or something, and Jonghyun hadn’t prepared for this. 

“It’s cute,” Minhyun said earnestly.

“Shut up.” Jonghyun covered the lower half of his face with one hand. Minhyun would say that. 

“What? Should I not call you cute now that you’re dating—”

“Shut up!” He threatened Minhyun with the hand previously covering his face. Minhyun laughed and danced backwards like he expected Jonghyun to smack him. 

“What?” he asked again, still all innocent. 

Jonghyun didn’t bother to really glare at him, instead dead-faced. His eye twitched, and he made a face. 

Minhyun laughed, clearly taking Jonghyun’s expression as a sign that he was forgiven. He always had this way of looking so completely thrilled for someone in situations like this. Like all he wanted was his friends' happiness. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Minhyun said. “You enjoyed it.”

Jonghyun kind of had, but no chance of him admitting that. He grumbled under his breath, not saying anything of substance back. His face was still warm, and the teasing had been kinda nice. Normalizing. Validating, even.

“So hyung knows?” Minhyun asked. “How long’s it been?”

“You didn’t ask Dongho all these questions?” 

“We didn't get past him telling me how amazing you are, like I'd never met you or something.” Minhyun did his best to look annoyed, all pouty lips and narrowed eyes, but it was all too clear he didn't mind.

The image of Dongho ranting to Minhyun was so clear in Jonghyun’s head, and it was perfect. Minhyun had always been Dongho's top choice for who got to hear all his rambles about whatever had caught his attention, and the excited tone and Dongho's smile and Minhyun's fake impatience that even a stranger would see through were so very familiar. Just this time Jonghyun had been the subject. He tilted his face away from Minhyun and pressed his lips together to hide his smile. It didn’t work. 

One of his socks was off-centered on his foot but fixing it would only make it look like he was hiding from the conversation even more. Jonghyun tried to ignore it, even though he was now aware of the seam rubbing against his skin. 

“It hasn’t been long,” Jonghyun said. “Just a few days for us like, actually dating-dating.” 

“What were you doing before?” 

Jonghyun smiled sheepishly. “Rolling with it?” 

Minhyun raised his eyebrows at Jonghyun's word choice. “Well, I’m glad you figured it out.” 

“Yeah, me too.” It was starting to feel very…cemented. A casual thing. He and Dongho were dating and that was that. Old news.

It also didn’t feel like a secret anymore. Jonghyun liked that. The only person he still had to tell was Minki, and he’d be all absurdly happy for them and cheerful and as kind-hearted as always. 

“Minki’s going to hate that he’s the last to find out,” Jonghyun said fondly. 

Minhyun laughed. “Either that, or he’ll tell you he’s known since before you did.” 

 

\--

 

Jonghyun peeked through the door, but his triumphant ‘aha!’ caught in his throat. He’d been looking for Dongho, who hadn’t answered his messages. It was late, but Jonghyun hadn’t been worried or anything--they'd literally just finished practice together. Still, they’d made plans to eat whatever convenience store food caught their eye and pass out after, all up until Dongho had disappeared. 

Dongho was curled up in as close to a ball as he could manage on a thin couch. He still had practice clothes on and looked like as much of a mess and you'd expect after a solid five hours of practice, and Jonghyun was in the same condition. They were busy as hell these days, with hardly a minute alone like they’d predicted. Even meeting up to eat tonight had been clearly too far of a stretch for Dongho.

He was fast asleep. 

Jonghyun didn’t mind, but Dongho really couldn’t sleep here—nor would he want to sleep in an uncomfortable chair and without showering. 

“Hey,” Jonghyun said, but it was too quiet. No chance of Dongho waking up. He looked very peaceful, all curled up. They’d all been so tired these past few days. 

Jonghyun plopped onto the arm of the couch. The sooner he woke Dongho, the sooner they could go back and get food and sleep for real. 

“Hey. Dongho.” Jonghyun pushed his arm. “Hey.” He wasn’t trying to jar him too much, but gentle approaches really weren’t the way to go with a sleeping Dongho. 

As shown by how Dongho still barely moved. Jonghyun rolled his eyes, but a smile snuck its way onto his face. 

“You’re a pain, you know that?” Jonghyun asked. He leaned in closer, so his lips weren’t far from Dongho’s ear and repeated his previous attempt to wake Dongho, now louder, now directly in Dongho’s ear. 

He groaned and shifted, and Jonghyun leaned back, a self-satisfied smirk growing on his face. There. For good measure, Jonghyun tapped on his arm incessantly, until Dongho shifted and moved it from Jonghyun’s comfortable range. 

“You told me you’d meet me to eat like fifteen minutes ago,” Jonghyun said. Dongho groaned again, and Jonghyun chuckled. “C’mon. You need to shower.” 

He spun off the chair’s arm and grabbed Dongho by the wrist, trying to pull him to his feet. Dongho had both eyes open now, and while groggy, had spared a smile for Jonghyun’s attempts. 

“C’mon,” Jonghyun repeated. Dongho’s hand twisted so he could grab Jonghyun’s wrist too, and Jonghyun loosened his grip so they could hold hands instead. Dongho pulled, not even that hard, but Jonghyun stumbled forward anyway, catching himself on the sofa's back with his free hand.

“No. You’re gross,” Jonghyun said. There were still sweat marks on Dongho’s shirt and the sheen of it on his face. “I’m not gonna lay with you.” 

“You're sweaty too,” Dongho said, and Jonghyun had no doubt it was true.

“Yeah, so we should go shower.” Jonghyun rested his forehead on the sofa’s back and tilted his head to see Dongho. “Is that even comfortable?” Dongho's head was balanced on the arm of the couch, and his body too near the edge for comfort. 

“It’s good enough.”

Jonghyun let his eyes fall shut, even though his body wasn’t in a position that would work for much longer. His and Dongho’s hands were still entwined. 

Dongho’s free hand brushed over his cheek, his thumb rubbing over it. The touch was nice. Calming. Jonghyun leaned into it. 

Dongho pulled on him again, and this time succeeded in off-balancing Jonghyun enough that he ended up also on the sofa.

Unfortunately for Dongho, Jonghyun’s hand shot down to catch himself and jammed right in Dongho’s ribs. 

“You deserved that,” Jonghyun said, even as Dongho wheezed. He ran his fingers over the spot in a silent apology. “Really, why’d you do that?” Jonghyun shifted to try and get more comfortable—even though he still refused to stay here too long. Besides, a good position was impossible. This wasn’t made for one person to lay on, let alone two. 

“Would you stop talking for one minute?” Dongho asked. There were way too many of Dongho’s limbs digging into Jonghyun. He squirmed. “And moving?” 

“Could’ve been home by now if we left when we were supposed to,” Jonghyun said. He finally figured out a decent position. Dongho tightened his arms around Jonghyun, trapping him in place, only one notch away from straight-up squeezing him.

Jonghyun rested his head on Dongho’s chest. His breathing was rhythmic, his touch comforting. Jonghyun smiled. It was still pretty gross.

“The sooner we go back, the sooner we can eat,” Jonghyun said. He balanced his chin on Dongho’s chest and grinned when he caught Dongho’s attention, even though their eyes were drooping. Jonghyun wiggled out of Dongho’s grasp and rolled to his feet. “C’mon,” he said. He held out a hand for Dongho, and Dongho took it. Jonghyun stayed close as Dongho stood, and right as he found his feet, pressed a quick kiss to his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im not super happy with this ending, unfortunately :(( but this is my first jbaek fic and considering how bad i am at writing dongho just getting through is a success. and i definitely want to write jbaek again, so hopefully it'll go better next time!! thank you for reading and for any kudos/comments!!

**Author's Note:**

> Happy JR month ^^ thanks for reading, and i greatly appreciate all kudos and comments! if this goes as expected, maybe 4 chapters? 
> 
> i live on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/onlystr84jongup)


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